A Deep Dive Into the Dark Funnel
Introduction
About 85% of all the stuff within the entire universe—we’re talking everything from planets, galaxies and even
outer space itself—is made up of something that we can’t see and experts aren’t even close to understanding yet.
It’s everywhere, floating around you, even floating through you.
It’s called dark matter, and it plays such an important role in
our existence, some astronomers say it’s “the glue that holds galaxies together.”
Account-based revenue teams experience a similarly spooky, invisible and super-influential force every day, too. And like
dark matter, this force often defies understanding, baffles even
the saltiest professionals, and when ignored—and it often is—
can threaten a deal faster than you can say, “Houston, we have
a problem.”
We call it the Dark Funnel. It’s a ghostly data-realm packed with buyer intent information that revenue teams historically haven’t been able to access. And this invisible data is great data, the kind that rapidly moves accounts through the sales funnel. It often includes invaluable intel from digital sources such as:
Industry publications
Blogs
Social networks
Influence outlets
Product review sites like G2 and TrustRadius
And more
These signals, transmitted from B2B buyers who conduct research across thousands of websites and digital resources, are brimming with incredibly useful and actionable intent data. We know this vital information exists … but because
we can’t see it, we don’t fully understand its significance.
This ignorance represents a missed opportunity. That’s because the Dark Funnel isn't really the villain in this story.
It's an untapped source of hidden and powerful knowledge. It's game-changing uncharted territory, and it’s
worth exploring.
And much like assembling a multi-part pirate map that leads to buried treasure, the true power of the dark funnel lies in combining those countless, disparate intent signals spread
across the internet into a cohesive picture. This picture
can empower your revenue team to navigate prospects through the sales funnel with absolute confidence.
Thankfully, world-class revenue technology platforms now exist that can illuminate the Dark Funnel and reveal this data. This never-before-seen sales intelligence can generate high-impact, actionable answers to questions
like these (and many more):
How many companies are in-market for what we offer?
Where should you focus your marketing spend?
Where should your sales and sales development teams invest their energies?
Why You Should Read This Ebook
Rather than focusing this ebook on platforms and service providers that excel at “lighting up” the Dark Funnel,
we believe it’s critical for account-based revenue teams to:
Meaningfully understand
the Dark Funnel
Achieve fluency in the
kinds of intent data
that resides within it
Understand the external
and internal sources of
Dark Funnel data
See examples of how Dark Funnel data affects
outreach and deal health
We feel uniquely qualified to provide this information. For nearly a decade, 6sense has helped over 600 companies—
from startups to world-spanning corporations—understand the value of Dark Funnel data, and pull that data “into the light” where it’s leveraged by revenue teams to help solve their customers’ business problems.
Consider this document a soup-to-nuts exploration of the Dark Funnel, and how understanding—and illuminating—its contents can significantly boost new logo sales and customer satisfaction.
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Learn about the wealth of anonymized buyer intent data that wasn’t visible to revenue teams ... until now.
Written by Kerry Cunningham